QEP Quagmires

I have been marginally involved in our college's Quality Enhancement Process (QEP) selection and development process during the past couple of years. We have selected a topic and now we need to start the work. Here is where the quagmire begins at my college.

The QEP is supposed to be a faculty-driven process. Since it is a five year commitment and an integral part of the SACS re-affirmation process, it is a fairly important project. Resources must be dedicated to it... and if you have faculty leading it, you need to provide them with some time to focus on it. That means course releases or re-assignment. Otherwise, the quality of the project is going to suffer. Hell! It is called the QUALITY Enhancement Process for a reason. If you want a decent job done on it, you need to give people time to work on it. If it were called the QUANTITY Enhancement Process, then we would just add everybody in the college to the project and make them do it as an add-on. We would have several people involved and we might have several initiatives going, but none of them would add much quality to the college. With a QUANTITY Enhancement Process, the administration would be able to say they had all these great programs and that many things had been done, but in reality, very little would have been accomplished at the core level.